NASA’s next planetary venture? Drilling into Mars

NASA has made its final selection for the next Discovery-class exploration mission, and the space agency wants to drill into Mars.

NASA has chosen Mars over a Titan splashdown and a comet hopper.

“The exploration of Mars is a top priority for NASA, and the selection of InSight ensures we will continue to unlock the mysteries of the Red Planet and lay the groundwork for a future human mission there,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a news release. “The recent successful landing of the Curiosity rover has galvanized public interest in space exploration and today’s announcement makes clear there are more exciting Mars missions to come.”

The InSight mission will place a single geophysical lander on Mars to study its deep interior. With the goal of understanding how Mars formed, the probe will drill 30 feet into the Martian crust to take the temperature of the planet, and include a seismograph to detect Marsquakes.

(NASA)

As a Discovery class mission — the cheapest of NASA’s three kinds of planetary exploration missions — it’s designed to perform quality science on a budget. The cost of this mission, excluding the launch vehicle and related services, is capped at $425 million in 2010 dollars.